Mamata: Bengal being maligned ..... Some BJP leaders have been repeatedly trying to whip up panic in the state and create an impression outside Bengal that matters are about to spin out of control

Mamata taking rounds of certain areas of Calcutta on Wednesday Telegraph picture

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya and G.S. Mudur, TT, 23.04.20, Calcutta: The Bengal government on Wednesday accused the Centre and its agencies of facilitating situations to malign the state in the fight against the coronavirus, saying the Indian Council of Medical Research had initially denied the state viral diagnostic kits and then supplied faulty antibody test kits.

“Bengal is being repeatedly maligned... such is the attitude. Against Bengal, they kept telling the national channels, continuously, Bengal not doing, not doing, not doing. That is not correct,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee told a news conference, chief secretary Rajiva Sinha by her side.

Some BJP leaders — and the fringe Right-wing ecosystem, in particular — have been repeatedly trying to whip up panic in the state and create an impression outside Bengal that matters are about to spin out of control.

The campaign has been rooted in “statistics” — that the rate of Covid tests in Bengal is the lowest in the country —but the state government says it cannot be blamed for that and a single factor was being overblown to create a perception that little was being done to combat the pandemic.

Without creating panic, the state has taken several steps to fight the virus but the focus on tests has overshadowed most of the efforts.

State-wise figures from the National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE), Chennai, show that Bengal had till Wednesday conducted less than 8,000 tests. Only two other states, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, which have far smaller populations than Bengal, have conducted fewer than 10,000 tests.

Bengal chief secretary Sinha said: “We are establishing with facts that (the allegation about) low tests (showing apparent) low prevalence is not true in Bengal. We have been testing a lot more, yet no spike in the number of positive cases.”

Mamata alluded to the ICMR advisory to the states on Tuesday to stop using the rapid antibody test kits for the next two days till it had examined their quality following complaints that they were not fully effective.

“See, rapid test kits... whatever they sent, they withdrew. Why? Advisory to withdraw…. Whatever they gave, totally withdrawn. Because defective. Whose fault?” she asked.

Chief secretary Sinha added: “Our problem with rapid tests (is that) 10,000 kits were given, all faulty. We are lucky we did not proceed very early on this; we did not have the kits. Only 220 tests, which were a complete waste of time, energy and resources.”

Mamata, usually one of the fiercest critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Sangh parivar, had so far kept politics out of the battle against Covid-19 since the outbreak assumed serious proportions in India.

But she had been losing patience over the past few weeks as the sate BJP, with the apparent blessings of its national leadership, cranked up its propaganda machinery.

Sinha said: “We need RNA extractors with these; they were in short supply. We got only 3,456 RNA extractors from ICMR or NICED (National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases) for 7,037 tests. Just imagine. We had ordered for 14,000 on our own, which saved us.”

Mamata, also the state’s health minister, sought to explain the point.

“There are three types of kits…. Rapid test kits, withdrawn. Totally faulty. Second, the BGI RT-PCR kits. These are also being withdrawn. Two types, gone. Third, antigen kits. Bengal hospitals are yet to be given those. Then what have we left? Who will answer?” she said.

“Ask those who were lying about how we were allegedly not testing enough…. A health hazard, because of all this. We are not responsible. Testing ought to be timely. Or else patients could die. Whose fault? Who is responsible for this situation?”

Mamata added: “For any kit to function, a medium is needed to transport the samples for testing. Without them, tests cannot be conducted, even if there are sufficient kits. The supply of these media are from ICMR and NICED. They too have been either withdrawing or calling them faulty, or claiming short (supply).”

She said the state had received 2,500 viral transfer mediums (VTMs) while 7,037 tests were conducted here.

“You need two swab kits each, according to ICMR standards, but only one each was given. Can you understand where we stand now? For 7,037, we needed 14,074. How many were given? Only 2,500. That too single-swab, not double-swab,” she said.

Mamata said this was the “real situation” with the kits and, therefore, with the testing.

“Thanks to our health department, we gave separate orders and got it done. ICMR and NICED were supposed to give, but we got our own…. Yet, such lofty speeches. Meetings every day. Sending people every day,” the chief minister said.

Senior officials of ICMR, which functions under the Union health ministry, denied Mamata’s allegations.

Scientists at NICED, a unit of the ICMR, said the ICMR had informed the states they would need to buy the materials for RNA extraction and viral transfer.

“This is not for Bengal alone. All the states were informed that they would need to purchase these components used in the diagnostic process,” a senior scientist said. “However, even then, because of requests made by our colleagues in other labs, we supplied as much as we could.”

The NICED scientists said the NIE datasets in the public domain show the number of tests conducted by the states.

“There was a period when we weren't receiving so many samples (from Bengal). However, we are now getting around 300 to 350 a day,” a senior scientist said, asking not to be named.

“We don’t want NICED or ICMR to be dragged into politics. They want to make NICED the scapegoat.”

The NICED scientists, however, acknowledged the problems with the rapid antibody tests, procured by India and distributed among the states despite evidence from Britain and America that the test kits were unreliable.

“It’s most unfortunate - but there is nothing else available for large-scale surveillance,” a scientist said, adding that it takes time to refine antibody tests for a new viral infection.

Unlike diagnostic tests, these tests look for antibodies generated by the human body after the infection.

“Were they brought in haste? There has been no opportunity to test them in the field at all,” the scientist said.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee visited Kidderpore, Park Circus and Ballygunge on Wednesday and requested people to follow the lockdown rules to prevent transmission of Covid-19, At each place, Mamata apologised for the inconvenience the lockdown was causing to the people. “Pehle bahut baar mili hoon. Abhi milne ka mauka nahin hain. Maafi chahti hoon. Minti karti hoon, aap log achche rahiye, ghar pe rahiye, shustho rahiye (I have met you so many times before. But now, it is not the right time to meet. I apologise for that. But I appeal to you, stay well, stay at home, stay healthy),” the chief minister announced, sitting inside a vehicle in Kidderpore.

On Tuesday, she made a similar announcement in some other parts of the city, including Park Circus.

The chief minister has been touring pockets of the city that have reported maximum lockdown violations or have been marked as containment zones. On Wednesday, Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim and Calcutta police commissioner Anuj Sharma were accompanying Mamata.